Marie Taylor

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-22-2022

When you're a business coach or mentor, you have a lot to manage, and you may be a one-man or one-woman show. How do you keep all aspects of your practice moving forward? Use the at-a-glance tips in this Cheat Sheet to help you navigate the world of business coaching and mentoring.

Article / Updated 10-25-2017

If you’re looking at business coaching only from a best price perspective, you’ll probably be disappointed and you may end up with buyer’s remorse. There are more important criteria for you to consider than just price. When hiring a coach, think of the process as a two-way conversation and building a professional relationship. Not only are you interviewing the potential coach, but a great coach will be interviewing you to ensure it’s a “win-win” for everyone involved. Think of hiring a coach as a collaborative process, and you’ll get a great result. Be clear about where you want to end up Begin with the end in mind, and you’ll not only have a direction to head but also be able to describe your goals with your prospective coach. Your coach will then be in a position to lay out a road map that’ll take you from where you are now to where you want to be. Ask yourself, “What will I have after the coaching is over?” Be as detailed as you can in your response. If you don’t know what you want, how will a coach know how to help you reach your goals? Be willing to be wrong Sometimes you simply don’t know what you want, and that’s often the theme for the coaching in the first place: getting clarity. If you already have clarity, be willing to be questioned and challenged about your wants, needs, and assumptions. What you’re aiming for may be unrealistic, not challenging enough, or simply wrong. During a meeting with a prospective client, one business coach listened to Charlotte outline the detailed coaching plan for her senior management team. She wanted coaching to improve communication skills, accountability, and responsibility, with a focus on improving their ability to delegate. Staff members were underperforming and making mistakes, and people were failing to be accountable or take responsibility for their mistakes. The company had a culture of blame and denial. After listening to Charlotte’s proposal for a one-on-one coaching program with each senior manager, the business coach asked what the response had been when the coaching program was discussed at senior management meetings. There was no response, because it hadn’t been discussed. This coach questioned the relevance and effectiveness of wanting a one-on-one program when a group cultural change was what was needed. He needed to coach the organization from top down to be open, honest, accountable, and responsible, and this required them to communicate and work toward these goals as a team. After initially being reluctant, Charlotte agreed, and a senior management training program was arranged, supported by follow-up one-on-one sessions, with the entire management, team including Charlotte. When you discuss your outcomes with your prospective coach be willing to explore not what you think you want, but what’s really needed. Be willing to find a coach who wants to exceed your expectations. Seek out a different point of view When you’re looking to address a particular solution or need, you may want to seek a coach who has an in-depth knowledge of your particular industry or niche. For example, if you work in recruitment, seeking a coach who specializes in recruitment may seem like an obvious choice, but someone who specializes may do what everyone else within your industry is already doing. Working with a coach from a totally different background and perspective is valuable. That person may challenge the normal approaches to business and help you see possibilities you hadn’t considered before. If you want different results from your competition, be willing to explore different ways of doing business. Take the time to interview coaches who have great credentials but may not have pigeon-holed themselves to one industry sector. Think outside the box! Lay the groundwork Time spent preparing the brief and exploring the framework for a coaching program is time well spent. Be willing to explore with prospective coaches alternative ways of delivering. If you’re looking for a large-scale program, invest in a preprogram inquiry and diagnostic session. Some coaches will do this free of charge; others will do a diagnostic for a fee, which can then be offset and recovered once a coaching contract has been signed. Although you know your business better than any coach ever will, an experienced coach will be better able to determine what you really need and how it can best be delivered. People don’t know what they don’t know, so don’t assume that you’ll automatically know what’s available. Ask! Focus on substance over style Some students wanted to take part in a team headed by Dr. Richard Bandler, co-creator of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), and best-selling author Paul McKenna. Each year, they trained more than 5,000 people in NLP and coaching. The benefits of being on the team included working with high-performing coaches, sitting in on a minimum of six coaching and NLP training sessions a year, and getting the opportunity to work with hundreds of people in a short space of time. The question students always asked was: “How do I get on the assisting team?” The answer was always the same: “First, you don’t ask. Second, I am not interested in what you tell me you have done. I’m only interested in what you can do.” Only those people who showed the right attitudes were invited onto the team for a probationary period. During this probationary period, they were trained and tested. Who they had previously trained with, the quality of their websites, their fame, or the number of books they had written had no relationship to their actual abilities to be a great coach. Avoid falling into the trap of thinking that a society logo or good-looking website is the same as someone being a great coach. Test, test, test, whether in conversations, meetings, or through trial coaching sessions, and you’ll soon sort out those who talk a good coaching talk from those who walk the walk. Find the best fit for your business If you go shopping with a list, you’re more likely to return with what you want. In order to find the best coach for you or your team, decide on the criteria and quality of the coach you want to work with before you go shopping. After telling prospective coaches about your business and its needs, ask them questions like these: Why do you think we would be a good fit? How do you know that? What happens if we find we aren’t a good fit? How would you deal with that? Get stakeholder participation It takes two to tango. If you’re looking for a coach to work with other people at your company, you should consider those people’s needs and wants. Talk to them about what they’re looking for in a coach, and assess their willingness to be coached in the first place. The conversations you have with staff are as important as the conversations you’ll have with prospective coaches. If team members are having coaching forced upon them, the coach may have to spend a lot of time getting those folks in the right frame of mind for coaching before the real coaching can even begin. Ask prospective coaches for advice on dealing with stakeholder resistance or sabotage. Their answers will give you insights into their experience and help you choose a coach who is equipped to get stakeholders onboard and keep them engaged. Avoid one-size-fits-all coaching Great coaches always have more than one set of coaching resources to draw upon. They’ve usually trained with a number of organizations and explored a wide variety of coaching approaches. When you select a coach who has lot of tools in her toolbox, you know that whenever what she’s doing isn’t working, she’ll have the flexibility to try another approach. Explore with prospective coaches their different approaches to coaching. Make sure they aren’t assuming that all clients will neatly fit into their coaching-by-numbers workbook. Manage your expectations When you search for and interview prospective coaches, always aim for the best you can afford. The highest price isn’t always a measure of coaching effectiveness, but as with most things in life, you get what you pay for. Professional coaches treat their business as all professionals do, and they value their time and expertise. If you want a coach who has invested thousands of hours in perfecting his practice and has a number of books to his name and a string of testimonials, don’t expect him to cost the same as a brand-new coach who has only trained with one coaching academy. Dot your i’s and cross your t’s An experienced coach will present you with her standard terms and conditions, usually as part of a contract. This shows she has experience and wants to make sure that the terms will work for both parties. The terms and conditions should include the following: Clearly outlined fees and payment terms The coach’s policies regarding attendance and canceled appointments The coach’s travel costs, additional costs for travel days, and so on Provisions for ending the relationship or for putting the coaching on hold Arrangements for providing feedback The coach’s policies regarding confidentiality and conflicts of interest

Article / Updated 10-24-2017

Mentors, if you aren’t getting the desired results, change your communication strategy. Do you know the saying, “The meaning of the communication is the response you get”? The more variety clients have in the way they communicate their ideas, the more success they have in achieving their desired results. Social psychology experiments confirm that our decisions and behaviors are influenced by many things beyond our conscious awareness. In Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Harper Business), he identifies six principles as influencing decisions unconsciously, all of which were tested and validated through social experiments. Coaching clients to use these principles gives them a wide variety of ways to influence. With each principle, we’ve given examples of how to use it effectively in business. The principles are as follows: Reciprocity: People tend to return a favor. Businesses that offer free samples use this principle to influence potential buyers to feel that they owe a favor. Offer something first. Allow someone to feel indebted to you. Offer something exclusive. This allows someone to feel special. Personalize the offer. Make sure they know the offer comes from you. Commitment and consistency: If people make a verbal commitment, they’re more likely to follow through with an action because they want their actions to remain congruent and consistent with their word. Ask people to start from small actions. If they take the first action, they’re more likely to take the next action. Encourage public commitments. People are less likely to back out of an agreement if they’ve made a public declaration. Social proof: People do things that they see others doing. Users: Approval from current/past users, use ratings, reviews, and testimonials. Peers: Approval from friends and people similar to the listener. Authority: People tend to obey or comply with authority figures, perceived experts, and celebrities: Experts: Approval from credible experts in the relevant field. Celebrities: Approval or endorsements from people who are widely admired. Liking: People are easily persuaded by people they like. This fact can be due to Physical attractiveness: People are influenced by looks. This unfortunate fact of life is clearly demonstrated throughout the advertising world. Similarity: Behave like a friend, not a brand. Show people that you can relate to and understand them. Scarcity: If a perceived scarcity for a product or service exists, this scarcity generates a demand such as the following: Limited number: The item is in short supply and won’t be available when it runs out. Limited time: The item is only available during a fixed time period. Competition: The inclination is to want things more because other people also want them. This tendency can be used in auctions, bids, or countdowns that show a diminishing supply. These principles are well known and used in business, especially in online marketing and selling where the Internet and emails provide cost-effective platforms to offer incentives and multiple communications including all or some of the six principles. The principles work because they unconsciously influence the decisions of the person receiving the communication. What we’re unconscious of is difficult to disagree with because it bypasses any conscious resistance.

Article / Updated 10-24-2017

As a mentor, you need to have a cache of words that you can draw on to help make a difference. Have you ever met someone who said he would do something but didn’t follow through with his actions? This sorry state of affairs is not uncommon in business, especially after meetings when instructions have been given or agreements have been made but people still don’t do their part. Modal operators give clues as to why this inactivity sets in and how you can coach your clients to listen carefully to others’ communication and change their language in order to influence people to deliver on promises made. Modal operators can be thought of as “moody operators.” They juice up the motivational desire to take action by changing the submodalities of the mind pictures. Thoughts precede actions, and when people can literally see themselves taking the action in the movie in their mind and see the movie run to the end with a successful outcome, they’ll engage in the activity. This exercise is called “Juicing up the motivation to take action.” Use this exercise to personally experience how changing one word in a sentence has an influence on how you feel about taking action and how you’re likely to behave. Play the sentences below, one at a time, inside your head using your own internal voice. Say each sentence, stop, and notice the feelings you get. As you go through the exercise, compare the feelings from one sentence to another. On a motivational scale of 0 to 10 where 0 is no motivation to take action and 10 is totally motivated, note the motivation for each sentence. Start by making an assumption that, regardless of the reality and circumstances of your life, it is within your power to take Monday off work and say to yourself: “I wish I could take Monday off.” Notice the motivational feeling and rate it 0 to 10. “I’d like to take Monday off.” Notice the motivational feeling and rate it 0 to 10. “I want to take Monday off.” Notice the motivational feeling and rate it 0 to 10. “I need to take Monday off.” Notice the motivational feeling and rate it 0 to 10. “I must take Monday off.” Notice the motivational feeling and rate it 0 to 10. “I can take Monday off.” Notice the motivational feeling and rate it 0 to 10. “I will take Monday off.” Notice the motivational feeling and rate it 0 to 10. “I’m going to take Monday off.” Notice that simply by changing one word in the sentence, you experience a different degree of motivation. Generally, for most people, as they progress down the list, they feel more motivated. These language patterns and humans are all unique, so some people won’t comply exactly with the usual patterns. Always work with whatever the unique individual human you’re communicating with presents to you. Now, do the same exercise again, but this time pay attention to the mind pictures that you make as you say the sentences, becoming aware of which submodalities change. Generally, the sentences at the top of the list are described as unclear or wishy-washy; people experience low levels of motivation and the activity is not likely to happen. As people progress down the list, the images become clearer and more active, and more motivation is present to take the desired action. Try one further sentence and notice what happens. If someone said to you, “You should take Monday off,” what happens to the picture? For most people, when someone else tells them what they should do, the mind picture disappears. Tell people what they should do and you’re literally erasing the very thoughts from their mind. No thought = no action. With this knowledge about how language changes the motivation and desire to take action, consider these sentences and whether the person saying them is likely to deliver or get others to deliver on their promise. Against each sentence is a reworked sentence using language designed to influence the listener and get the desired results. “I would like the report to be concluded by Monday” versus “The report must be concluded and delivered to my office on Monday.” “We want to finish this project by the end of the month” versus “Let’s aim to finish this project and see it done by the end of the month.” “The customers must be told they have to return the signed contracts before we can ship the product” versus “Tell the customer to return the signed contracts and the product will be shipped to them by return.” To improve your success rate in influencing people to take action, where possible completely remove the modal operators from the communication or use more motivating ones.

Article / Updated 10-24-2017

As a mentor and business coach, you have a responsibility to ethically persuade. When looking to influence, always keep the end goal in mind and consider what could be an obstacle or resistance to reaching it. Always think, what does my language do to the submodalities of the listener or receiver? The word manipulation is emotionally charged, especially in the context of influencing and persuasion. For many people, it implies being underhanded. The word manipulation means “to use or change (numbers, information, and so on) in a skillful way or for a particular purpose.” If you add “or to move in a particular direction” to this definition, it becomes clear that without moving customers, colleagues, or suppliers in the direction of saying yes, no business would ever happen. The intention behind the manipulation is what’s important. Like any tools, persuasion, and influence can be used for good as well as harm. Many of the principles and concepts in business coaching have been misused by many people and even been used for evil. They have been used for speed seduction, unethical selling, politics, warmongering, and radicalization, but that does not make the tools themselves evil. It’s an unfortunate fact of life that there are clients who see these tools as ways to persuade people to make decisions that are not in the receiver’s best interests. You’ll find enough coaching clients who want to use persuasion and influence ethically. Better to turn a project down than engage in something that goes against your morals. Use this simple model to decide which projects to coach clients in and which to say no to. If the results are Win (for the communicator) and win (for the listener), say yes. Win (for the communicator) and lose (for the listener), say no. No (for the communicator) and win (for the listener), say no. The term toxic leadership has been used to describe the failure rate of CEOs. In the past two decades, 30 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs have lasted less than three years, with studies showing CEO failure rates ranging from 30 percent to 75 percent in the first three years of tenure. Toxic leadership is a phenomenon that operates from the win/lose perspective and is driven by hubris, ego, and a lack of emotional intelligence. Valuing the importance of a win/win relationship with colleagues, staff, customers, and suppliers will increase your value at work, your effectiveness, and your longevity.

Article / Updated 10-24-2017

Networking is reciprocal. As a business coach, you can develop your network in different ways. Traditionally, face-to-face relationship creation has been the norm. This method often consists of getting together at evening network meetings with like-minded business professionals over canapés and a glass of wine or at a business breakfast with a speaker and mingling while you chew on a croissant and drink average coffee. The organized network of small businesses or professional associations such as BNI, the Institute of Directors, the Small Business Federation, and the like, where business cards are swapped and elevator pitches are honed to perfection, have sprung up during the last 30 years, too. A new wave of networking is happening in small and medium-size business where the social aspect of doing business by having membership of shared office space is becoming popular. Clever, opportunity-spotting entrepreneurs are making a business out of this. WeWork, a company established in 2010, has grown to $16 billion in seven years by developing high-specification serviced office spaces in the United States and, more recently, the UK. WeWork is more than a serviced office; it’s more of a networking and business-building concept. WeWork is funded on a rolling subscription based on usage. Members are encouraged to network, share ideas, and create community. The system is a vibrant model and a great way for young businesses to make connections, get recommendations, and get things done business to business. Equally, online networking has taken off and enjoyed massive growth in the last decade. This doesn’t mean spending time on Facebook sharing the latest photos of your birthday-type networking. Instead, this means using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to make business contacts and network easily. The power of online networking is huge and has created large revenues for business, too. The answer to “Do you network and how?” has become more complex. We’re doing it at multiple levels. What are you doing to create new relationships and developing existing ones actively? The concept of business networking started with the Industrial Revolution according to historians, but what about the marketplaces of Ancient Greece and Rome? Whole civilizations were built in trade and transaction. The principle of networking is the same today: a deposit-and-withdrawal game. The investment may be worth its weight in gold if you get clear on two things: What are you networking for? Identify networking groups that meet your interests. Some networks are all about making contacts and pitching to each other for business. Others are based on learning and making social contacts for future projects. Are you looking to mentor a new business owner, for example, or are you networking to swap contacts and increase sales? Get really clear on what your aims are because doing so helps you focus your attention and determines where you want to network, whom you want to meet, and why. What are you prepared to share, and what is your boundary? How trusting are you of others, and what are you willing to share with them? Networking involves the development of trusting relationships for mutual benefit. It’s reciprocal, and when it works well, lifelong relationships are built. If you think of networking as transactional, you’re really missing the point. Think about what your boundaries are around the relationships you intend to create. Networking is business creation, and it gets richer as an experience when you focus your attention in the right places. Develop your skills if you need to. Discover how to engage with others, to actively listen and take a genuine interest in them. Ask good questions that create a dialogue instead of leaving the other person feeling she’s been interviewed. Be clear about if and how you may be able to help someone, and follow through on your commitments. Get clear on what you would like from each networking relationship. Become confident in talking about yourself, your business, and your aspirations. Relationship management is a great area for coaching. This area isn’t like step-by-step coaching to get a date (which is popular, by the way); it’s more like coaching a client to develop strategies to meet her networking goals. Some of this coaching may be about helping a client get clear on answering those two questions: “What are you networking for?” and “What is your boundary?” Alternatively, it may be a specific skills area that a client wants to develop. Here's an example of how starting small creates memorable networking skills. Ben, a newly appointed assistant director and rather shy, had an objective to increase his network of contacts within the insurance industry during a 12-month period. He would be taking over the insurance division of a legal firm at the end of the year. When his coach explored this problem with him, it was clear that he wanted to build his confidence in talking to new people. One of his concerns was that he would meet someone in person and forget her name during the conversation. When the time came to move on, he handled the “goodbye and keep in touch” badly because he couldn’t recall the person’s name and would be so focused on the business card he would look rude and disinterested. This issue seems a small thing, but it was really getting in Ben’s way. Remembering a name creates rapport and makes people feel good. His coach demonstrated a simple tried-and-true method to help him with recall. You can try it for yourself. When people tell you their name, attach it to a memorable thing about them, such as “Rory red tie” or “Sharon works for Guinness and comes from Canada.” Obviously, you don’t then introduce them to others at the networking event like this! You could attend a networking “mingle” with a colleague or your coach and make the learning fun. See how many of the same people you both meet, what you used as your recall tag, and what you can remember. Then discuss follow-up commitments. If you find networking a challenge, you may be shy or lacking in confidence, or you may just need to practice it. Break down the skillset of approaching and introducing, active listening, recall, describing yourself and your work, making a request, closing, and agreeing on follow-up. Focus on getting just one element right. Then build on that and work on the next. Remember, networking is a skill, and skills require practice.

Article / Updated 10-24-2017

Developing collaborative relationships within and outside of a business can help to leverage ideas, investment, innovation, and the like. Many high-growth businesses have been spawned through collaborative working and the development of specific industry networks. The high-tech sector, in particular, has actively identified synergies in new products or joint working and collaborated to create spin-outs and new joint ventures. This situation is particularly evident in high-tech business clusters in Silicon Valley and Cambridge. A study undertaken by Myint et al, published in 2005, demonstrates the importance of networks and collaboration. Their mapping of the development of the Cambridge Silicon Fen shows how social capital, an investment in key relationships over time, has created economic capital in the Cambridge area. Creating synergy and serial entrepreneurship Serial entrepreneurship has encouraged and supported new ventures and encouraged businesses to establish themselves in the Cambridge area and take advantage of localized social ties. This situation has helped firms access funding more readily and shows the power of a network to create and leverage innovation and synergy fast. The region has become expert at creating spin-out ventures in both biotech and high-tech areas. The highly successful ARM and Conexant Systems are both spin-outs from Acorn computers, which were established in the 1970s. Serial entrepreneurs have similarly established many of the companies with staff moving between organizations regularly over time like a synergistic collective. These synergies have supported inward investment. Investors have found it easier to invest within the cluster over a long period of time due to proximity and the high-level social networks created there. The relationships between people have been instrumental and have created entry routes for many new entrepreneurs. You can find some complex stakeholder maps that show the complexity of the relationships and the connections that have created this infrastructure. Growing wiser and creating value You can find hidden business mentors supporting business growth in many locations. In the Cambridge technology region, for example, they may not call themselves mentors, but their specific wisdom and experience on investment, technology transfer, business development, growth, organizational development, and new market entry has been instrumental in growing the region. This positive improvement demonstrates the power and value creation in effective business relationships. This has been achieved through formal means such as angel investors sitting on boards through to informal social networking. Proximity to the university obviously helps with ready access to new research, innovative biotechnology, engineering and micro-technology. Still, the network map of relationships developed over a 40-year period in high-tech is impressive. The image below shows the business creation generated through the network of related business owners and investors. If you were to create your own cluster map for your social and business network, where could you create or expand your own mini-cluster in your industry? What would it take for you to develop enough trust in yourself and others to collaborate more and co-create rather than compete? Now there’s a thought: creating social capital and cash flow by collaboration. Obviously, you would want measures such as nondisclosure agreements in place at the appropriate time to mitigate risk, but that’s a sidebar if the idea of creating synergy excites you. Serial entrepreneurs tend to be highly networked and sit on the boards of more than one company. Learning to be a board director can take many forms. If you want to create multiple businesses during your leadership career, do you have a plan for that? Are you being coached toward that goal?

Article / Updated 10-24-2017

The following business coaching example shows you how to check for commitment and desire to established SMART goals. You can ask individuals to do this exercise on their own or do it with them. Business outcome: By the end of December the customer services team in the meat packing unit will have improved the time for acknowledging and answering initial complaints from five days to three days and have improved customer satisfaction with our complaints process while reducing packing and delivery errors. On the face of it, this situation looks specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed. You have enough here for someone to go away and work out a delivery plan but it has no “juice.” If you were coaching the customer services team or the managers in that team, you would want to help them create a really rich picture. You want to help them flush out any concerns they’re aware of and any unconscious factors that may block them. You can use a structured dialogue and ask them: “Given that this is a goal you’re expected to deliver, what specifically do you want to deliver?” Keep asking, what else? Specifically what? Get the team to be really specific and to articulate it out loud. Get it onto flip charts or an electronic whiteboard. This meat company example is a real case. A business coach helped the group to make it real. They came up with things such as “I want to hear Geoff in the freezer section say, ‘Well, you have stopped Marston’s Meats from complaining every week. I’ll make the coffee for a week for your team.’” “How will you know without doubt that you have achieved your outcome?” You want really concrete measures here. You want them to position themselves in absolute faith that this has been delivered and they know it because… . This team knew their figures and could say readily what that reduction in complaints would mean in terms of the volume of paperwork in the next ten months. They could calculate in their heads what it would mean for their customers and that it would mean a strong possibility that they would keep a key customer without whom the jobs of some butchery colleagues could be at risk. They all knew exactly what it would mean for their Christmas bonus, one of them to the penny. This involvement is what you want. You want rich, meaningful, personal feel-good indicators that will motivate people to deliver. The fact that the bonus could be higher isn’t enough by itself. “What evidence will you show to others that the goal has been achieved?” Building on the last question, you’re asking the group to really imagine what and where is the proof that lets others know that they’ve delivered as they said they would. The business coach worked with this group to elicit how they would celebrate, how they would go down to the local pub on Friday night after work and spend the kitty that their manager was going to give them from their Christmas fund. They agreed to hold some of it back until the end of the month to have their “three days, three beers, three teams fest.” Through facilitating the group, the business coach was getting them to imagine it happening and how wonderful it would feel to drink that first celebration drink together. “How will they know?” Here you’re looking for whether the team can put themselves in the shoes of others who have an interest in their succeeding (or not) and how they’ll know that others have noticed their achievements. This team came up with things such as, “Mr. Drew will see the movement in the weekly figures, and he’ll know if we’re going to hit our average by the end of November from the complaint logs. He’ll see the electronic chart shift red to amber.” “What specifically will they experience/see/hear/feel?” Help the team think about they’ll experience, as well as what people around them may experience. You’re helping them to attach emotions and visual images to their developing story. The more they can create that, the more likely they are to be motivated to do it and to notice the simple specific indicators that let them know they’re on track. “What color is it?” This part is where some of them say, “Huh?” Stick with it and push them for the detail. They have a color in mind. They may feel weird admitting it. But they have one. By sharing something that makes them go, “Huh?” and creating a dialogue about it, you’re making connections to the outcome and creating dialogue at a different level of abstraction — in this case, quite an amusing one about, “How could an outcome delivered be green and a complaint be pink? Surely they were all red.” “What shape is it?” Again a question designed to get them talking about how they saw the outcome so they have a common picture. This team created a set of circles with a fountain sprouting money in the middle. So now they had a green-and-white outcome, which had moved from red and pink over a ten-month period, and it was a set of interlinked circles with a fountain of money in the middle. “What does it sound like?” By now, the team will be rolling with it or will be cajoled into playing along. This team was clear — it sounded like a cascade of coins coming out of a slot machine at high speed. (Some of them even attempted to sound it out.) “What does it smell like?” So now their successful outcome has a clear picture with sound attached, and they agree that the smell is of a cold frosty morning — clean and fresh. You now take all the information they’ve given you and play it back to them while they simply listen and imagine themselves achieving it between now and the deadline. Encourage the client to close his eyes and make the picture — to feel the sensations he has described and hear it all internally. Just notice what fun you can have with a seemingly bland outcome or goal. It can really fire people up and get them motivated. It makes a fairly boring sentence on a page come alive into something with possibility behind it. Although this process is describe as a group activity here, you can walk through this with individuals or you can work with a group and ask them to work through their own process individually as you guide them through it. If you’re thinking of using a structured process such as this one with clients, you can record it on a phone or laptop for them. That way, their own dialogue is there to play back. They have the process available to access anytime they choose. Small things such as a recording can really add value for clients. It places them in control. Empowering clients builds the relationship.

Article / Updated 10-24-2017

As a mentor, you have a number of ways to help a client see herself and become aware of the impact of her experience and how that may manifest in behavior and habits. The following is just one three-step process you can use in a two- to three-hour session. Step 1: Gathering the personal map Ask your client to bring every bit of objective and subjective data she has about herself to the session. This data may include psychometrics (MBTI, DISC, OPQ and the like, reasoning tests, talent assessment data), personal appraisals, career review documents, CV, and prior training record. Wherever your client sits, notice where she is facing. Use a table to the left of her if you can or the left side of a large table. Ask her to use the data to write 20 or 30 sticky notes that summarize the information about herself that is indicated in that data. Ask her to position them on the table and organize them as she wants. Use prompt questions to help, but let her describe her data in her own words. Step 2: Identifying high points and low points Stand where you have enough room for both of you to walk and create a timeline by putting pieces of evenly spaced paper on the floor from left to right that represent each decade from 0 to the client’s current decade (0, 10, 20, 30, 40, and so on). Get your client to stand on the 10, look back to the 0, and consider her first ten years of life. Ask her to just talk you through her key informative experiences as she recalls them — the high points and low points. Let your client decide what to include. Some people will want to highlight significant life events at each decade; others will want to highlight only those from working age. Work with what your client gives you. There’s no need to dig around in the recesses of her childhood. This isn’t therapy — you’re simply encouraging the client to reflect and identify the indicators that have informed her experience to date. You may want to write them down for her as you go along. When she has arrived at 10 and is complete, ask her to walk to 20, look back to the 10, and consider the decade 10 to 20. Go through the process for each decade, noting the high points and low points as you go. If the client isn’t currently of an age ending with 0, end by asking the client to consider the period from now back to her last decade marker. When you have elicited the timeline, ask your client to look back along the timeline while you read through the notes at a storytelling pace so the client hears her story retold. She may want to add other things. Ask your client to combine the two sets of information (the sticky notes and the timeline), and ask her what she notices about her strengths and high points. What made them high points, and what is the client noticing about her own abilities? Really help the client see and feel her strengths and wisdom. Coach her at a slow enough pace for your client to hear the volume and weight of her success. Coach and encourage her to breathe it all in by saying things such as, “Notice how you were good at x from a very early age. You must have been unconsciously competent at that for a very long time. Some people spend years trying to acquire that skill. Can you see how valuable that is in you and for other people?” Your job in this part is to help her really get a sense of the value she brings. You may sometimes see a client stand a little taller and straighter when you do this. Just notice it for yourself — no need to comment on it. Ask what she notices about the low points when the feedback indicated she wasn’t operating at her best. Really help your client see her whole self and understand the learning she needs to do. If she is struggling to see her contribution to the low points, ask her things such as, “So, when you consider that low point, what can you take from it that may help you now and in the future?,” “What is there for you to learn here?,” and “What would others say if you asked them?” By now, your client is really becoming aware of patterns in her past behaviors and possibly gaining some new insight into how others experience her. You want to keep her there a little longer. Just give her plenty of space to notice her whole self. Step 3: Discovering desired improvement The next step is to help your client determine what she may need to do more of, try out, or change. Where does she want to direct her strengths to increase her own behavioral flexibility? What would she like to create in her relationships? What may she need to work at and with whom? Encourage her to begin to create specific outcomes and to articulate how she will know that the improvement she wants is on track or has been made. Ask her to create a visual map that shows what she wants to improve and what can create more success. Help her recap what she has learned about herself; where things have worked out and where they haven’t. Suggest that she considers how she can use the insights she has noted. Encourage her to share her self-discovery with others beyond the coaching to garner their support in managing her own areas of development as she tries new ways of delivering and makes small or major adjustments. This subject also relates to you. This isn’t just information. Self-awareness is a cornerstone to help you deliver flexibly and enable others to succeed. You need to be able to catch yourself when you have patterns of behavior that don’t support you and to notice what you do that works so you can do more of it. Do the work if you want results.

Article / Updated 10-24-2017

The UK department store chain John Lewis has a tagline: “Never knowingly undersold.” Its website explains that this tagline means the following: Quality: “We have the very highest standards when it comes to product quality, plus we regularly benchmark John Lewis–branded products against the competition to ensure that we’re not just market-leading in quality, but also on price.” Price: “We set highly competitive prices for all our products, with a dedicated team regularly checking them against other high-street [Main Street] competitors.” Service: “John Lewis staff are partners in the business, and are highly trained to offer helpful, impartial advice on all products. Our service doesn’t end with your purchase — we provide excellent after-sales and a great choice of expert services to help you, from delivery to installation.” They provide a valuable service and deliver to standards of excellence, and they value what they do and charge appropriately for it. When you operate your coaching business to similar standards of excellence, you can rightly and congruently charge for it as John Lewis does. Many coaches, especially those new to the profession, struggle with valuing what they do and charging for it, often underselling or discounting to get work. The strength of your brand and how it’s perceived affect your price. Also, the price you charge can affect your brand in a negative way. A low price suggests that you’re not in demand and, therefore, aren’t good at what you do. Value your brand, and price based on the difference you make and not the time you spend, and you’ll earn well. Realizing your value The perceived value of your brand equals the sum of the difference you make to your clients and the uniqueness of your products and services. There are three principles to consider when deciding your value: Value is determined by the difference you make to the customer and the uniqueness of what you have to offer, compared to the competition. The more difference you make and the more unique you are, the more valuable you are. People buy solutions to their needs. The more desperate the needs, the more value your solutions have. Make your business solutions focused. People value specialists and experts. Position yourself and your brand as a subject specialist and you add value. Following a six-step model Here is a six-step model for having a six-figure coaching practice: Identify the desperate needs of your potential clients. Research your market, listen to forums and chat rooms to identify problems, and ask business people what their greatest problems are. Identify your needs. Define your purpose, values, and mission so you’re clear about what type of work best suits you. Create a coaching solution to the desperate needs of your clients that satisfies both your needs and theirs. This approach guarantees a win-win for both you and the client. Think about who the customer is, what pain he experiences, and how you can alleviate that pain. Position yourself as a niche specialist in providing the solution. Use social media, articles, and books to position yourself as an industry expert. Market and sell your services. Find the most cost-effective way to inform people about what you do, and discover how to get them to say yes when you ask for the order. Charge appropriately for your services. If you underprice, it’s a win for the client and a lose for you. That’s not a good recipe for a sustainable business. Positioning your coaching brand In the restaurant trade, two extremes are evident — Michelin-star restaurants and burger stands — and a whole range of choices can be made in between. Each caters to a distinctively different market and prices accordingly. They both meet the desperate needs of the hungry, and there is a place in the market for both of them. When deciding where to position your brand, ask yourself the following questions: Who are my ideal clients? Are they looking for the coaching equivalent of the Michelin-star restaurant or the burger bar experience? Determine where your brand fits best and ensure that you price according to the sector you fit into. If you choose to offer the burger bar experience, aim to offer the best burger bar experience possible. Some amazing street food vendors are out there, offering outstanding food and service, running respectable businesses, and have long lines of customers who keep coming back for more. Adjusting your financial thermostat The main reason coaches fail to charge appropriately is that they have a poor relationship with money. This exercise helps you to readjust and break through any financial fears you may have. Even if you suspect that you have no money issues, do this exercise. We’ve worked with fabulously wealthy clients who, after doing this exercise, have had breakthroughs in earnings and wealth creation. This exercise is called “busting through financial thresholds.” Sit down comfortably and review your purpose, values, and mission. This step primes your mind to consider earning with all actions being aligned to them. Think about how money comes your way, and notice how you represent this idea in your mind. It may be in checks, direct to the bank, by cash, or a combination of all. Consider the quantities and frequency with which money comes your way. You can represent this idea of money in multiple ways, so go with whatever works for you. When you have a representation of how money comes in, consider how you represent it going out. This representation includes money spent on household bills, business outgoings, overheads, holidays, entertainment, and so on. When you have a representation for money flowing in and flowing out, double the income. That’s right. Whatever you generate, imagine it was to double and notice what happens. Common reactions to this idea are “Wow, that would be nice” or “Ugh, that feels uncomfortable.” If you experience a feeling of discomfort, you’ve reached an unconscious threshold. Slightly reduce the amount until it feels comfortable, and sit with that for a moment; then raise it in increments until the amount is doubled. When doubling the income, most people see more coming in and more going out, which is understandable, because this increased spending is what most people do. As they earn more, they spend more. Double the amount again. If you’re uncomfortable with the amount, repeat the instructions in Step 4. Double it again. As you see money flowing in and flowing out, there comes a point where you see yourself earning more than enough for all the costs of living and the stuff of life, so imagine any excess money going off into investments and projects that align with your purpose and values. Double it again, and keep doubling it until the amounts seem ludicrous, even unrealistic. It can get to the millions and even billions, and you feel comfortable with it. After you’ve completed the exercise, simply sit with the experience for a few minutes, allowing your mind to reorganize the clear messages you’ve given it. Those messages are to remove any limitations and thresholds you may have had around wealth generation and to align all you do with purpose, values, and mission, leaving you free to accept your true value.